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Listen and subscribe to Reasonism Radio Podcasts: Podcasts for freethinkers, atheists, reasonists, rationalists, humanists, secularists and religious people alike who are interested in various topics relating to religion, science, evidence, truth and reason.

When we try to understand life and the world using knowledge gained from our very own observations and experience, we become coherent, less conflicted and less frustrated and everything begins to make more sense.

I was fortunate enough to be given a preview of the new film titled 'Creation' with Jennifer Connelly and if you want to watch it and don't want to read my thoughts on it until after you do, then stop reading now. Otherwise, read on....

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province wanted to watch the World Cup. The rest of his family wanted to watch a religious program, a 'gospel show' instead. They fought over the remote control and eventually, his 68-year-old wife, his 36-year-old son Colin and his 23-year-old daughter Lebogang, killed him. They banged his head against the wall.

It is ironic isn't. Religion, in this case Christianity, has a commandment that says thou shalt not kill. Yet, passion for it has made many people kill.

It NASA sent one of its probes, Cassini to observe Saturn's biggest moon, Titan. According to two of its reports, there are indications that life exists in Titan. Organic chemicals had been detected and its surface is covered with liquid. But the liquid is not water. It is methane. Scientists presume that if there is life there, it will be likely based from methane, not water like ours here on Earth.

Cassini, the probe, sent Earth two reports:

The first report shows that hydrogen gas in the moon's atmosphere disappears at the surface. This suggests to scientists that there could be life on the surface of the moon, albeit in forms of bugs or bacteria, breathing the hydrogen like we breathe oxygen here on Earth.

The second report also indicate that a certain chemical is lacking on the surface of Titan a chemical that could serve to be consumed as food by whatever could be there.

Apparently, each one of the evidence presented may not mean much on their own but when they exist together, it is a strong indication for life to exist.

Jupiter is a planet believed to be composed mostly of gas. It is characterised by bands of different layered and coloured gasses. Last year, after Jupiter hid behind the sun, away from our vision for three months, it emerged with one of its major bands missing. As surprising as this is, the planet actually losses or gains a band every fifteen years on average. We (our scientists) still do not know why.

For many of those who still deny the ever-strengthening influence of religion in Australia, arguing that maybe if we ignore religion, it will go away, perhaps they would be alarmed to know that Queensland State Schools will soon be teaching Creationism / Intelligent Design in their classrooms.

How can Australia begin to influence the world when it is allowing its children to be brain-washed with such baseless, simplistic answers to humanity's biggest questions? We are living in 2010 and all the evidences we have discovered that can explain much about our existence, amounts to nothing if the knowledge of those who have gone before us are not passed on to the next generation.

Further, in a multi-cultural society, why should tax payers money be used to favour one branch of religion by teaching only a Judeo-Christian explanation of who we are and why we are here? There are Buddhists, Muslim, Aboriginal versions too? What benefit is this for them? Our public education system needs to remain secular. Tax payer's money are supposed to benefit everybody... not just the Christians.

It was somewhat held that Neanderthals were completely different to us, Homo Sapiens. There's a new twist to this story arising from the studies made by the team/s led by Dr Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany and Dr David Reich, of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

The prevailing scientific theory at the moment is that human beings first evolved in Africa.

A part of this group of individuals migrated out of Africa and they populated the rest of the world.

With the recent study, Neanderthal DNA was found in the blood of Europeans, Asians and Australasians. Neanderthal DNA, however, is not found in the blood of Africans whose ancestors remained in the continent.

This implies that the group of Africans who migrated out of Africa interbred with Neanderthals at some stage during their migration out of Africa around 80,000 years ago.

Notes: Previously, getting DNA from the remains of Neanderthals themselves is difficult because their DNA did not preserve too well. Scientists have Neanderthal bones that are 30,000 to 40,000 years old. So in this study, 97% of the Neanderthal DNA was gathered using a new method that allowed them to collect Neanderthal DNA from bacteria and fungi, something which would be interesting to read about in the future.

There has been an amazing discovery made studying the DNA of the remains of a Neandertal, dated 38,000 to 44,000 years ago. Scientists found that many of us have Neandertal ancestors. They inter-bred with our ancestors until about 400,000 years ago before their lineage separated from us. This inter-breeding occurred in the Middle-East but not in Africa. This means that human beings with ancestors that originated from the Middle-East (almost the rest of the world) have more neandertal genes in them than descendants of the Africans who refused to migrate and instead, chose to stay in the African continent. (Source)